Skip to content
Free · Instant · In-browser

Transplanting Calculator & Seedlings, Nursery & Seed

Plans rice

Plants neededSeedlingsNursery areaSeed

Your 5-star review is a signal. Your 2-star review is a gift.

Plan your transplanting — from field area and spacing get the plants to transplant, the seedlings to raise with a buffer, the nursery bed area, and the seed to sow.

Enter your field

Nursery crop🌾 Rice (paddy) · 20×15 cm
Your result
134,895
Plants to transplant
NurserytransplantField
155,129
Seedlings to raise (+15%)
103 m²
Nursery bed area
4,309 g
Seed to sow
33
Plants / m²
What this means
To fill 1 acre of rice (paddy) at 20×15 cm spacing you need 134,895 plants. Because some seedlings die after transplanting, raise 155,129 (15% extra) on a 103 m² nursery bed. Allowing for 80% germination, sow about 4,309 g of seed in that nursery.

Next: sow the 4,309 g of seed in the 103 m² nursery 3–4 weeks before transplanting, harden the seedlings off in the last week, and transplant only the strongest into moist, well-prepared soil.

At 20×15 cm = 33 plants/m²; nursery rate 1,500 seedlings/m² of bed.

Transplanting — key facts

Plants
area ÷ (row × plant)
Mortality buffer
≈ 10–20%
Nursery density
≈ 1000–1500/m²
Rice spacing
≈ 20 × 15 cm
Tomato spacing
≈ 60 × 45 cm
Veg nursery age
≈ 4–6 weeks
Rice nursery age
≈ 20–30 days
Privacy
Runs in your browser; nothing uploaded

Raise exactly enough seedlings

Transplanted crops — rice and most vegetables — start life in a small, protected nursery before moving to the field. Plan it wrong and you either run short of seedlings at transplanting (gaps in the field, lost yield) or waste seed and nursery space. The chain is simple: field area and spacing fix the plants needed, a mortality buffer sets the seedlings to raise, and germination sets the seed to sow in a nursery of the right size.

This tool runs that whole chain for your crop, spacing and area, so you sow the right amount of seed in the right-sized nursery and transplant a full, uniform stand. Add a sensible mortality buffer, harden seedlings before lifting, and transplant on time for the crop. Pair it with the Plant Spacing, Seed Rate and Days to Harvest tools to plan the rest of the crop.

Never run short

Raise a buffer of seedlings so you fill every space in the field.

Size the nursery

Get the bed area and seed to sow — no wasted space or seed.

Save on seed

Transplanting uses far less seed than direct sowing high-value crops.

Plan any plot

Works in acre, hectare, bigha, guntha or m² for any field size.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many seedlings do I need to transplant?+

It's the field area divided by the spacing: plants = area ÷ (row spacing × plant spacing). Rice at 20 × 15 cm needs about 333,000 plants per hectare; tomato at 60 × 45 cm needs about 37,000. This tool computes it for your crop, spacing and area.

Why raise more seedlings than plants needed?+

Because some seedlings die or are too weak to transplant. Raise a buffer — typically 10–20% extra — so you can cull weak plants and still fill the field. The tool adds your mortality percentage to the plants needed to give the number of seedlings to raise.

How big should my nursery be?+

It depends on the seedling density your nursery method supports — roughly 1,000–1,500 transplantable seedlings per square metre of bed for most vegetables and rice. The tool divides the seedlings to raise by that density to size the nursery bed area.

How much seed do I sow in the nursery?+

Work back from seedlings needed and germination: seeds = seedlings ÷ germination %, then grams = seeds ÷ seeds-per-gram. Tiny vegetable seeds (tomato ~300/g) need only a few grams; rice (~45 seeds/g) needs much more by weight. The tool gives grams and kg.

What spacing should I use?+

Use the recommended spacing for the crop and variety — closer for determinate or short-duration types, wider for vigorous, long-duration ones. The tool pre-fills a standard spacing per crop, which you can override. Wider spacing means fewer, larger plants; closer means more plants and higher density.

When should I sow the nursery before transplanting?+

Most vegetables transplant 4–6 weeks after sowing (3–4 true leaves); rice 20–30 days; onion 6–8 weeks. Count back from your target transplant date to set the nursery sowing date, and harden seedlings (reduce water/shade) for a few days before lifting.

Why transplant instead of direct-sow?+

Transplanting saves expensive seed (you raise plants in a small, protected nursery), gives a head start while the main field is still occupied or being prepared, lets you select the strongest seedlings, and produces a uniform, weed-competitive stand. It costs labour but suits high-value crops and rice.

How do I reduce transplant shock?+

Harden seedlings before lifting, transplant in the cool of evening or on an overcast day, keep roots moist, water immediately after planting, and lift with a little soil/plug intact. Healthy hardened seedlings with minimal root disturbance recover fastest — which is why the mortality buffer matters.

Can I use this for plug trays or pro-trays?+

Yes — the plants-needed and seed figures are the same. For tray-raised seedlings, set germination high (good seed in trays germinates 85–95%) and a low mortality, since plug seedlings transplant with little shock. The nursery 'bed area' then represents tray bench space.

Does it work for any area unit?+

Yes — enter the area in acre, hectare, guntha, bigha or m² and the tool converts internally. The plants, seedlings, nursery size and seed all scale to whatever area you choose, so you can plan a backyard plot or a multi-acre field.

Related farming tools

Explore the toolkit

1900+ free tools, zero sign-up

Calculators, developer & SEO utilities, data, content, hardware and farming — all instant, private and in your browser.

Browse all tools
Calculator

Inductance Conversion

Universal inductance converter across pH, nH, µH, mH and H with sketched coil families per decade.

Open
Farming

Crop Water Budget Soil-Bucket Calculator

Free crop water budget calculator. Treat the root zone as a bucket: pick the soil texture and crop, set rootin

Open
Dev & SEO

Webhook Documentation Generator

Define your webhook events and sample payloads, then generate complete documentation: an event catalog, an inf

Open
Niche

SOX Cost Calculator

Diamond-grade Sarbanes-Oxley cost calculator with a 3-section circular control wheel covering §302 (CEO/CFO ce

Open
Content

Image to EPS Converter

Convert images to EPS, the encapsulated PostScript format trusted for print, logos and scalable vector artwork

Open
Hardware

Hardware Specifications Explorer

Faceted CPU & GPU specification explorer: filter by type, brand, process node, release year and TDP, then read

Open
Productivity

Password Strength Tester

Open
Pro

Guided Practice

A distraction-free guided meditation session for any Vigyan Bhairav Tantra dharana — breath-paced timer, optio

Open
Calculator

Joules Volts

Solve for the terminal voltage on a capacitor given stored energy in joules and capacitance using V = sqrt(2E/

Open
Farming

Crop Water Footprint Calculator

Free crop water footprint calculator. Enter total water used and yield to get the water footprint of your crop

Open
Dev & SEO

npm Dependency Analysis Fundamentals

MD5, SHA-256, SHA-512, SHA-3, BLAKE2, HMAC, PBKDF2, file hashing, verify, compare & free API — all in your bro

Open
Niche

Advertising ROI Calculator

Diamond-grade advertising ROI calculator with a PPC scoreboard (CPC, CPM, CTR, Conv-rate, ROAS, blended CAC) a

Open
Content

Image to GIF Converter

Convert images to GIF, lightweight, universally supported graphics and simple animations.

Open
Hardware

CPU & GPU Tier List Pro

The hardware hierarchy measured five ways: 130+ CPUs & GPUs (2015–2025) ranked into live S–D tiers by performa

Open
Productivity

Password Tools

Test password strength against real standards (NIST 800-63B, OWASP ASVS), check against known breaches via k-a

Open
Pro

Read the Full Text

Read the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra (Vijñāna Bhairava) verse by verse — Sanskrit (Devanagari), IAST transliteration

Open
Calculator

Joules Watts

Convert joules of energy to watts of power across a tunable time window from 1 ns to 1 hour. Includes defibril

Open
Farming

Drip Chlorination Calculator

Free drip chlorination calculator. Enter system flow, run time, target ppm and your product's available-chlori

Open
Dev & SEO

Is Your JavaScript Bundle Too Big?

Drop a JS/CSS bundle or paste a webpack/Next.js stats.json and get the real gzip and Brotli size, an interacti

Open
Niche

Content Marketing ROI Calculator

Diamond-grade content ROI calculator with a top-funnel-to-won-deal attribution waterfall. Per-content-type ROI

Open
Content

Image to HDR Converter

Convert images to HDR, the high dynamic range format used for lighting, rendering and 3D scenes.

Open
Hardware

Silicon Architecture Explorer

Explore CPU and GPU silicon: group every part by microarchitecture (Zen, Ada Lovelace, RDNA, Ampere, Blackwell

Open
Pro

Settings

Choose your theme, reading size, and script (Devanagari / IAST), and export, import, or clear your private pra

Open
Calculator

Kva Amps

Compute transformer secondary FLA from kVA rating with NEC wire ampacity and breaker cross-reference for both

Open